Author: machtman

You can now watch my film Awake, starring Alex Bulmer and Margo Cargill, online for free.

For UK audiences, it’s available on BFI player as part of their groundbreaking new collection Disabled Britain on Film. And while you’re there, check out the cornucopia of other great films – narratives, docs and historical material, captioned and audio described.

I’m selecting these photos as I go through them chronologically, with the perspective of a few months distance. In my mind, they speak for themselves, so I’ve avoided captions unless I can think of something to say that the photo doesn’t already tell you. But if you have questions, fire away!

If you’re using a screenreader, please go to my PHOTOS page to access the alt-text for these photos. And go there as well if you want to see all the Jogja/Indonesia photos I’ve posted to date.

In September-October I traveled to Indonesia with Caglar Kimyoncu to assist on his project, What Makes You Who You Are. Just now sorting through some of my photos. The task seems daunting, so I plan to add 10 photos at a time. What do you think?

Wonderful week screening Awake at FilmFest Dresden and presenting a workshop in Accessible Filmmaking. Introducing an inclusive process that started with access auditing, nine participating filmmakers were challenged to create a short film complete with access features in just three days.

Day one looked at the representation of D/deaf and disabled people in contemporary cinema, covering both bad examples (from the pitiful to the heroic) to best practice where disability is just one aspect of the characters’ identities. Through a series of writing exercises, we came up with a scenario for our visiting “talent”: British actress Margo Cargill (Awake, Birds of a Feather, White Man Van) and Maxime D. Pomerleau (Prends Moi, Fubar Age of Computer) a fantastic Québecoise actress that we met at Look & Roll in Basel. Margo is blind and Maxime uses a wheelchair, so this was an opportunity to script disabled characters, and look at how the filmmaking process could be adapted to make it accessible for both of them.

Day two was all about filming, and the participants brought all of their combined skills to the shoot. The improvised story took place in a hospital waiting room and gave us room to explore the differences in public and private health care in Germany. A row broke out! Just for the cameras, of course.

I quickly edited the footage back at my hotel room (while all the other participants attended festival parties – but I’m not bitter!) and Day 3 was about adding access features of captioning and audio description. This was the first introduction to audio description for many of the participants and they were engaged and curious how to incorporate AD into their own projects using standard or sometimes creative methods. AD was written and then recorded, each person narrating a bit to create three separate versions. It was so interesting to then compare the different approaches – proving that AD is in fact an art in itself.

The first recent triptych I made was from photos taken exploring Scotland with Margo Cargill as research for our new film, April in the Country. Lately I’ve done a few more April in the Country triptychs, but I’ve also been combining photos from other travels, sometimes combining different places into one triptych.

They’re like storyboards. I love to see the new ideas that juxtaposition of one image with another creates, sometimes it’s psychological, sometimes formal, sometimes a mix of both. They leave a lot of room for people to come up with your own story or interpretation.